Dear Mental Health Practitioners, Take Care of Yourselves: a Literature Review on Self-Care (2020)

International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling (2020) 42:1 – 20 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-019-09382-w

REVIEW ARTICLE

Dear Mental Health Practitioners, Take Care of Yourselves: a Literature Review on Self-Care

Kirsten Posluns 1

& Terry Lynn Gall 1

Published online: 23 May 2019 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract Stress, burnout, and professional impairment are prevalent among mental health professionals and can have a negative impact on their clinical work, whilst engagement in self-care can help promote therapist well-being. This literature review examines the role of self-care in the promotion of well-being among mental health practitioners. Specifically, empirical research is presented in relation to specific domains of self-care practice, including awareness, balance, flexibility, physical health, social support, and spirituality. Findings from this review under score the importance of taking a proactive approach to self-care and, in particular, integrating self-care directly into clinical training programs and into the quality assurance processes of professional organizations within the field of mental health.

Keywords Stress . Burnout . Professional impairment . Self-care . Therapist well-being

Introduction

Mental health practitioners (e.g., counselors; psychotherapists) work in a culture of one-way caring (Guy 2000) in which they are required to demonstrate empathy, compassion and patience, without the expectation of receiving such care in return from their clients (Skovholt et al. 2001). To be effective in providing mental health services, practitioners must develop a professional alliance or working relationship with clients that maintains appropriate boundaries and levels of emotional or psychological involvement, and to do so consistently from one client to another (Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison 2011). Establishing and maintain ing these one-way working relationships takes significant effort and energy (Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison 2011) placing practitioners at increased risk for negative outcomes such as stress (El-Ghoroury et al. 2012), burnout (Wityk 2003), and professional impairment (Harrison and Westwood 2009). Ironically, while helping clients move toward well-being, practitioners often can overlook their own needs (Barnett et al. 2007) and indeed may not have B learned

* Terry Lynn Gall tgall@ustpaul.ca

1

Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada